Need a blind date? There's an app for that

Published January 20. 2013 12:01AM

OKCupid's Crazy Blind Date application, a free app for iPhones and Android phones, is intended to eliminate the effort it takes to set up a date. If you're free for an hour at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday, you can fill the slot with a date. You select a local bar or coffee shop to meet from the app's recommendations, then choose among four people the company's algorithm has suggested who are also free at that time.

The dates are not totally blind - you can see names, ages and faces - but the photos have been scrambled. You meet, and afterward the app asks how it went. The better it was, the more you pay, from nothing up to $3.